


Missing

by eloquated



Series: Stranger Than Fiction [4]
Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Kamar-Taj (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-10
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-01-11 01:07:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18419675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eloquated/pseuds/eloquated
Summary: Sometimes you have to leave your safe, comfortable morgue and take a leap of faith.(Or, Molly Hooper leaves London for Nepal.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This week I didn't think I was going to get any writing done, because it's been such a busy one. But after a vveeeeerrrrry small amount of sleep, this idea popped into my head and demanded to be written before I left for work!
> 
> Proofread but not beta'd, as usual, so all the mistakes are my own.

Molly Hooper understood fear.  

Fear was that strange feeling in the pit of your stomach before everything went spectacularly to Hell.  It was how she’d felt walking into the morgue for the first time, still struggling with the Hollywood image of what death was.  

Everything had gotten better from there, she reminded herself.  And death was no stranger than life to her, now.

Fear was how she’d felt, holding onto that body; the shoulders threatening to wedge in the window frame, and her eyes dedicatedly not looking down.  This wasn’t respect for the dead-- it was leveraging her conscience against Sherlock’s life. 

And now, looking back, she would have done it again.  

Fear was a crippling thing that tried to bind your feet when you tried to run.  It was a living, breathing sort of emotion; the kind that lingers with you and fixes itself in your memory.  It coloured everything.

What fear  _ wasn’t _ , Molly reminded herself as she made her way through the narrow, paced streets, was anxiety.  It wasn’t these rattled nerves, and the twisting in her belly-- though, she supposed, when you’d just flown halfway around the world to see your ex, fear was probably acceptable.

Especially when you had no idea what reception you’d receive.

Finding Stephen had meant cashing in most of her favours with Mycroft Holmes; and Molly still wasn’t entirely sure how he’d managed to find him so easily.  The British Government had his fingers woven into a spiderweb of threads, and with a little consideration, he’d pulled the right one.

That just happened to come back with a hastily scribbled address, written on a sheet of dog eared Bart’s stationery.  

She’d booked the ticket before she could talk herself out of it.

A fool’s journey, and a step away from the safe familiarity of London, and into the unknown.

Molly’s fingers gripped the strap of her bag hard at her shoulder, her blue and green sweater standing out starkly against the reds and browns the people in the city seemed to favour.  Overhead, the power cables gathered in impossible bunches; fanning off and tangling around one another, much like Mycroft’s own web.

And maybe this was selfish.  She couldn’t discount the possibility that all of this was to set her own mind at ease.  Maybe he was happier here. 

It had been a decade.

More than long enough for these feelings to fade.  If she was honest (and she tried to be, especially with herself) Molly had given up waiting for the expiry date on her heart.  Sometimes, maybe, you simply never forgot the first person you loved…

And sometimes you were Molly Hooper, sitting in the staff cafeteria at Bart’s, skimming through lists of flights-- because listening to your colleagues trade horror stories about Stephen Strange was doing terrible things to your sleep.

_ When you see his face on the news, he looks so much like-- _

_ They could be brothers.  Wouldn’t that be weird? _

_ And both of them coming to bad ends in the same week. _

_ You think anyone knew them both? _

_ Doubt it.  Strange was from America. _

As far as the world knew, or the tabloids cared, Sherlock Holmes was dead-- and there was nothing Molly could do for him, now.  The helplessness of it galled, a prickling discomfort under her ribs. 

_ If you need anything you can have me. _

And he had.  Needed her. For a little while.

But Stephen was alive.

The thirteen hour flight from London had given her ample time to consider her options, but very little by way of actual answers.  She had no idea what to expect in Kathmandu, or where Stephen was living, or what he’d been doing.

It was getting later in the day when Molly finally managed to find the building in question.  The Nepalese sun was setting, and despite the fiery shades of gold and vermillion that streaked across the sky?  The air was cooling in preparation for the night.

Logically, Molly supposed she should have found her hotel first, but she was here now.  And she’d been too impatient, then. 

It was a nondescript door, just wood.  There was no gilding in gold, or fantastical engravings; and there were certainly no young people sitting outside, tending to tables of candles and incense, like they had across the street.

It could be any door, anywhere in the world.  

Unsteadily, Molly shifted her backpack a little higher on her shoulder, and raised her hand to knock.  The sound seemed strangely echoing, like it had traveled much further than it should; and for half a distracted moment, Molly wondered just what sort of wood it was, that made a sound like that!

“Greetings, welcome to Kamar-Taj…  Can I help you?”

With a start, all nerves and jet lag, Molly looked up at the man standing in the doorway. He was taller than she was, but not especially tall for a grown man.  Dark skinned, and dark eyed, the man’s hands were folded into the long drape of his sleeves; the position gave him an air of patience. 

“I’m…  I’m looking for someone.  A friend.”

“We all come here looking.  My name is Mordo-- come in.”

Which was cryptic, practically textbook enigmatic.  But Molly had come this far, and so she followed him anyway.

Beyond the nondescript door, the house seemed peaceful. It was dark wood and latticed paneling, and her feet rustled on the mats when she politely toed off her shoes in the entry.  It was the sort of place that breathed welcome into the walls, and felt like home-- even when you’d never been there before.

“The person you’re searching for, they must be very important. We’re a long way from London.  Tea?” Mordo offered with a mild sort of smile, and held up a cup to her, steam rising in lazy whorls from the surface.

“Please…  And thank you, that sounds like just what I need after all this traveling.” Molly wanted to ask if Stephen were there, if she even had the right place; but Mordo seemed happy to take things at his own speed, and Molly didn’t want to sound ungrateful or rude.

Nepalese social customs weren’t her forte, after all.  And part of her was very grateful to have met someone that spoke English!  

“So, this friend of yours.  Does he have a name?”

“Stephen… Um, Dr. Stephen Strange.  I know he’s supposed to be here, but I’m…”

Molly knew what she had to look like.  Rumpled from flying, and wearing dark circles under her eyes.  She’d known this was all madness before she’d even left London; and now, Mordo was eyeing her with that level, considering gaze, and Molly felt about an inch tall.

Not exactly the first impression a girl wants to make after a decade.

Molly’s smile broke a little, as she cradled the warm cup between her palms, “And he… He might not even want to talk to me.  And that’s alright! He… Doesn’t have to. I--”

From around one of the screens, latticed with a pattern like lace, a pale woman in white robes-- actual robes-- padded into the room.  The dim lights gave her an ageless appearance, with smooth skin and ancient eyes that watched Molly more curiously that Mordo had. 

She wasn’t sure what to make of this woman, and with an awkward shuffle-- setting down her bag, and the cup, and trying not to knock the edge of the table-- Molly stood up politely to greet her.

“Sit, please.. You’ve come a long way, Molly Hooper.  Rest. Everyone comes here searching for something. Some want power, to change their own lives, or others… But you, Dr. Hooper?  I think you’re looking for a piece of yourself that’s been missing for a very long time.”

“A piece I probably shouldn't have given away.  But, I didn't know--”

“If you thought that, you wouldn’t be here.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even Stephen Strange can't always predict the future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Sorry this part took me a little longer to get out. Real life has been a complete bear, and Stephen was giving me some trouble! (Figures, right? Troublesome muses are trouble!)
> 
> Still, things seem to be settling down, so I'll hopefully have the next chapter up soon!

A world away from the busy metropolitan streets of New York, life in Kamar-Taj had a rhythm of its own.

Stephen woke early-- well, at first he’d been woken, but eventually his body had settled into harmony with the rise and set of the sun.  The food was simple, rustic; but there was something about the uncomplicated dishes that settled his mind. This wasn’t food as theatre, and it wasn’t trying to reinvent the definition of cuisine.

It was there to provide, to nourish the body he’d abused for such a long time.  And while there were days he missed the fresh bitterness of a good coffee, most of the time he didn’t think about it.

He’d always preferred coffee.  It was a taste he’d developed in high school; cheap, drip coffee from the machine in the kitchen, that had given him the buzz he needed to push through his habitually late nights.

Then there had been Molly, with her defiant little Britishisms.  And suddenly he’d found a box of Twinings tea bags tucked beside his kettle, and learned to love the taste of it on her lips.  

It was a smell that had always reminded him of her.  

Of hasty, tea-and-toothpaste kisses in the morning, before they both rushed off to their classes.  Of two summers living in a small apartment near the university hospital; ad there had been a beautiful freedom in those months of nine-to-five.  

And even though the sun over Nepal sometimes seemed to belong to a different sky?  Sometimes, Stephen could almost imagine she was there; like she had then, showing up to walk him home when his shift ran late.  Framed by the sinking sunlight that gilded the copper strands in her hair, and made her glow.

She’d been beautiful to him. His Molly.

And his mistake in leaving.

It had been a decade. More than long enough to forget the weight of her body against his chest, or the way her hair would smell when he buried his face in the soft waves of it. 

Long enough that her face shouldn’t the one that flickered at the edges of his fantasties when--

“You’re distracted today, Strange!”  His sparring partner laughed, the butt of his staff striking the ground as he leaned against it, “You’ll have to do better than that if you want to be a Master someday!”

Stephen couldn’t argue with that.  His head, and his heart, just weren’t in it.  He felt distracted, and his skin prickled with the energy of  _ something _ .

“There’s a disturbance in the Force.”  He muttered sardonically to himself as he went to put away his own training staff. 

Of course, it was just as likely that he’d simply been outside in the hot sun for too long, and his brains had begun to cook.  Too many late nights, and early mornings; burning the candle at both ends in his dogged pursuit to be the best.

With a deep breath, and a heavy sigh, Stephen took a long drink from the bottle he’d left beside the rack of wooden weapons.  It helped, clearing away some of the dust from his throat, still breathing hard from the exertion. He wasn’t entirely sure how long they’d been sparring, but Shae was dripping with sweat, his tan robes clinging to his chest and under his arms; and Stephen supposed he didn’t look much better.

But it had been a welcome distraction, and his muscles ached pleasantly from the exercise.

“You’re a lot of things, Strange, but I’m don’t think you can quite claim to be a Jedi yet.  A few more years of training, and we’ll talk about a lightsaber.” 

Stephen looked up at the sound of Mordo’s voice, his low chuckle of amusement giving the words a warm burr.  His friend was waiting on the steps that lead back inside, and his bemused, too-knowing expression make the hair on Stephen’s arms stand on end.  

Definitely something odd going on, then.

“Come inside, you have a visitor.”

“A visitor?”  Stephen canted his head, and tried to parse out the amusement on Mordo’s face.  

“You know, someone who has come to see you?  And possibly,  _ visit _ ?  I believe it’s quite a common practice in other parts of the world.”

“I know what it is.  But I don’t have anyone that would be coming to see me.  Here. In  _ Nepal _ .”  He added weight to the last word, and watched Mordo smirk again.  Nobody even knew he was here! He hadn’t wanted to field questions about some magical healing place, or suffer their pitying looks.

Slowly, Stephen stretched his hands, and felt the crippled tendons burn and resist, cramped after hours of holding his staff.

Away from the city, and the surgeries, his hands had begun to heal.  Not to repair-- the damage, he was starting to believe, was permanent-- but the scalpel damaged muscles had begun to settle into their new alignments.  

His scars had finally been allowed to close.  Scab. And slowly the red tenderness had faded to pink.  

He’d come looking for a miracle, and found something else, entirely.

“Well, Strange, you have two options.  Either stay out here, and miss dinner; or come inside, and greet your visitor properly.”  Mordo only chuckled at Stephen’s exasperation, “I didn’t ask for a name, but I’m curious about anyone that’s come all this way to see  _ you _ .”

No gender pronouns, no description.  No warning.

Privately, Stephen thought his ‘friend’ (and that term was growing looser by the moment!) was having just a little too much fun playing at mysteries.  “I’m not going to guess who it is. I’m not Hercule Poirot.” He shot back, and this time, Mordo laughed properly.

It was a small sort of victory.

After being out in the Nepalese sunset, everything inside the house seemed much darker.  Mordo flanked his side, and lead him through the increasingly familiar maze of halls, until they reached the entryway.  

And for a moment, Stephen thought his heart had stopped.

Sitting at the small, low table across from the striking figure of the Ancient One, was a woman.

Small.

Rumpled.

Her mouse brown hair pulled up in a ponytail that had mostly fallen apart.  

Her back was to him, but Stephen thought he would know the nape of that pale neck anywhere.  Knew with muscle memory certainty that made his ruined fingers twitch, just how it would feel to brush her hair aside, and kiss the warm skin just over her collar.

Stephen knew how she’d shiver, and how she’d tilt her head forward-- just a little-- to invite him to do it again.

_ No _ .

That had been then.

A decade-   _ A lifetime- _

Ago.

No words could force themselves passed the knot in his throat, as Stephen turned sharply on his heel and left the room.  Straight backed and rigid, he ignored the gaze on his back as he all but fled.  

Mordo wasn't sure to make of it.  He'd seen Stephen face down Kaecilius without batting an eyelash-- and now his courage failed him?  From the doorway, he could see the look of wounded surprise on their visitor's face.  He knew that look; it was the moment of terrible confirmation, that everything you'd been afraid of was true.  

Molly Hooper.  Her image floated in the space behind Stephen's eyelids, glowing with the last warm moments of the sunset.   _ His Molly _ . Who he had never expected to see again, because this was the end of the world; and it had been so long.

Molly, who he had never, not once, been brave enough to reach out to.  Who was the unknowing subject of his hundreds of unsent drafts.

Was in Kamar-Taj.

Looking for him?

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sure it's obvious, but we're definitely playing fast and loose with the movie timeline here! Basically, this takes place after Stephen's fought Kaecilius, and gotten the cloak. And everything sort of diverges from canon after that!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which missing things are found.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long, everyone! Sometimes the muses just rebel until you figure out what they're trying to say! 
> 
> There will definitely be an other installment of this series, though! (These two are just too much fun to write!)

So that was it.

If there had been any doubt in Molly’s mind, that had killed it. 

Out of the corner of her eye, Molly had seen a man-- taller than she remembered, broader across the shoulders.  His shirt had been blue beneath the smudges of dun coloured dust, his dark hair streaked with grey at the temples.  

Ten years had changed them both.  But it would take more than that for Molly not to recognize him.

“I should… I’m sorry.  I should go.” 

The Ancient One, face smooth and unreadable, shook her bald head; and Molly felt her heart sink a few more inches into her stomach.  It was difficult to imagine coming all this way, only to have him turn and leave. But technically, Molly tried to console herself, she’d done what she’d set out to do.

Stephen was clearly alive.  

Could she go back to London, comforted by that knowledge?

“You must stay with us while you’re in Nepal.  A guest of Kamar-Taj. You will accept our hospitality, won’t you?”  The Ancient One steepled her fingers over her cup of tea, and Molly had the distinct feeling that it was less of a question, and more of a statement.  

She would stay, because anything else would be rude.  

She would stay, because she hadn’t yet found what she was looking for.

Molly wasn’t entirely sure she  _ was  _ looking for anything else.

… At least, nothing possible.

The pieces of herself were long gone and lost, discarded somewhere over the Atlantic.  

“You’ve come to Kamar-Taj for a reason, Dr. Hooper.  It’s not always clear what that is. But people rarely arrive on our doorstep by accident.  Mordo will show you to your room, you must be exhausted after your long flight. We’ll speak more tomorrow.”

And that was how, without ever actually agreeing, Molly Hooper became the guest of a small monastery.

On a side road, passed a side road… Around a quiet corner… In Nepal.

…

Unfortunately, knowing what you were looking for-- and actually finding it-- were two very different things.  And Molly wasn’t entirely sure where to start with either. The people of Kamar-Taj were unfailingly generous; they never made her feel strange or unwelcome, even though she had literally washed up on their doorstep unannounced.

These sort of things just happened here, Mordo had explained with a laugh-- the tides of the universe were difficult to navigate, and it wasn’t always clear why someone ended up where they did. Sometimes they stayed at Kamar-Taj, finding peace and satisfaction in their training, and their teachings. 

Sometimes they didn’t.  Some people were called bak out into the world, and there was no shame in that, either.  

And Molly couldn’t argue with that logic.  Hadn’t she felt adrift and lost when she left London?  Hadn’t she felt the same untwisting release in her chest when she’d made the choice to leave?  For the first time in years, this had been her decision alone. Not Sherlock Holmes leaving his fingerprints on her heart, and in her life.  Not her parents, or her siblings, or their expectations.

It was Stephen forcing her hand by leaving her from the other side of the ocean.

No, it had been Molly.  And for better, or worse, she was here now.

‘Here’, being a quiet corner in the library, with a positively massive book open in her lap.  Stephen had managed to avoid her for three days, and from his conspicuous absence in the monastery, Molly had to guess that he wouldn’t be back any time soon.  

It should have hurt, knowing he’d felt the need to flee the country to avoid her.  And sometimes it did, when she allowed herself to dwell on it. But after a decade, what were a few more days?  She wasn’t going to anywhere, after all… That choice had been taken out of her hands.

And there was a peace in that, too.  In submitting to the quiet wisdom that some things-- some  _ people _ \-- needed to come to you.  

Molly had crossed half the world, and he had to meet her the rest of the way. In his own time.

Her first day in Kamar-Taj, she had slept.  Deep and sound, and dreamless; the sort of sleep you have when you’ve been away from home for a very long time, and finally can curl back into the warmth of your own bed.  Only, it wasn’t her bed (Molly had supposed it had something to do with the tea she’d had, but she couldn’t bring herself to mind all that much).

She’d found the library on the second day.  

And Wong hadn’t seemed to mind when she asked to steal a quiet corner to read in.  He hadn’t done more than raise an eyebrow when she gravitated towards a collection of greyish blue volumes on a low shelf.  They weren’t spellbooks, or tomes of ancient rites-- they were journals. Old and caked with dust where it had escaped in between the pages.

He’d even smiled when she’d fetched him a cup of tea as well, on her way back from the kitchen that evening.

The stillness of the library was peaceful, instead of stifling; broken only by the rustle of pages, or the creak of their chairs.  

Most people that came to Kamar-Taj were looking to the future.  They sought the power to effect change. And over time, the teachings of Kamar-Taj had shifted to welcome that energy.  They’d learned to harness their own ambition; and to teach others to do the same.

Ailleann Mhic Domhnall had written her journals before all of that. When the paths of magic had created more of a web than a line.  And from her comfortable chair, Molly lost herself in the recollections; she devoured the stories of Ailleann’s magic, and her love.  Of her healing, and how much joy it brought her. 

A woman from a thousand years before, who’d never seen a car, or a cell phone; but her writing was there on the page in black and white.  That piece of her had endured, with all her longing and her love, as she waited for her husband to return. 

Molly wasn’t sure when she’d fallen asleep-- some time in the middle of the night, between Ailleann delivering a difficult baby, and counting yet another day that her husband had been gone-- but when she woke in the morning, she realized that the chill of night had been held back by a warm, red cloak.

“Wong?”  She asked, thumbing the fine edge of the cloak; and for an instant, she could almost swear she felt it wrap more snugly around her shoulders, “Is this yours?”

The librarian glanced up from his desk, and eyed the cloak with an expression that seemed to say,  _ I’m far too enlightened to be surprised. _

“It’s Strange’s.  He must be back from New York.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who stuck around, and whose taken the time to comment! It really does give me the kick in the pants I need! 💕

**Author's Note:**

> 💕


End file.
